Not With A Bang
by CharlesTheBold
Summary: One of Will's most important cases becomes even more difficult when it seems that one of Joan's school friends may be involved. Please review.
1. The Bang

**NOT WITH A BANG**

_This is the way the world ends:_

_Not with a bang but with a whimper._

----- T.S. Eliot

_(Author's Note: This is part of a series that traces Joan and her friends after May, 2005. This particular story is set in January, 2006, and starts with Will for a change, though the next generation will soon get involved.)_

_(Disclaimer: I have no rights in Joan of Arcadia. My only purpose in writing this story is to have fun and hopefully share it a little.)_

**Chapter 1 THE BANG**

Chief Bruson rushed into Will's office. Bruson was not a friend like Roebuck, nor a friend-wannabe as Lucy had been, but simply a competent professional police chief from elsewhere. Considering previous stormy relationships, Will found that a relief.

Today, however, was no time to think about such comparisons, Bruson was waving a paper. "There's been a bomb threat. At City Hall."

He handed over the paper, which looked like the printout of an Email. The message proper simply:

_A bomb will go off in City Hall at 11:00 AM. Get everybody out._

"Who sent this?" demanded Will.

"We don't know. It's a phony reply-address. Maybe we can trace it, LATER. But for now--"

Will looked at the clock. 10:43. Seventeen minutes until-- "Have they evacuated the place?"

"Of course. After 9/11, we can't ignore a threat like this. I've already alerted the traffic cops to divert traffic from the square. But I want a senior policeman on the scene. You."

"Roger." Will got up.

"We phoned the bomb squad in Baltimore. They can't get here in time, of course, but they can advise. I'll give them your cell phone number."

"Thanks. Tell Supplies that I need a bull-horn, IMMEDIATELY. Then I'll rush over."

"Good."

The official center of Arcadia was a little park of flowers and trees, occupying one city block. The police station was on its west side. To its east was City Hall, imposing in its pseudo-Roman architecture with columns and a dome. To visitors who were unfamiliar with Arcadia's history of municipal corruption, it made a pretty picture, particularly in spring time. Nowadays -- but Will didn't have time for aesthetics. He was jogging across the park, thankful for the short distance, while listening to the Baltimore bomb squads' unpleasant warnings on his phone.

_"Don't rely too much on the 11:00 time. A particularly ruthless terrorist might give a specific time and then set it off the bomb early, to kill stragglers."_

"Understood."

_"And warn people not to stay too close. Shrapnel can be a problem. Glass from broken windows, blown out at high velocity--"_

"I got it." He could see the crowd: City Hall employees plus bystanders curious to see what was going on, shivering in the January weather. And possibly the bombers themselves? He spotted Acting Mayor Frances Maynard in the crowd, talking into a cell-phone. She was Acting Mayor because the elected Mayor and vice-Mayor (appropriate name) were in jail, having landed there during Will's sweep two years ago. It seemed like forever ago to Will, but Arcadia had not had time for another four-year election.

Will rushed over to the Mayor, forcing his way through the crowd and not caring whose toes he stepped on, literally or figuratively.. "Fanny, do you think everybody's out.?"

She nodded. "I told each department to stick together, and told their bosses to count heads. All accounted for."

He looked around. "Tell them to get further from the building. The bomb squad warned my about flying glass"

She grimaced as she visualized the possibilities. "OK."

" I'll call the hospital and have them send ambulances, just in case of anybody wounded.. Also, have everyone be on the alert for somebody sneaking in or out of the building. It's possible that this whole thing is a hoax to get people out so that somebody can steal city property with inpunity."

She nodded and got back on the phone. Not wanting to badger her during an important message, Will got out the original Email and stared at it again.

_A bomb will go off in City Hall at 11:00 AM. Get everybody out._

Suddenly it hit him. _This wasn't a threat_.

It warned of an explosion, of course, but it wasn't a threat. No ranting and raving. No DOWN WITH THE GOVERNMENT or POWER TO THE PEOPLE. Just a statement of danger.

Somebody knew of a bomb danger and decided to warn the people on the site. Maybe a saboteur with second thoughts. If Will could find out who it was, he might induce the warner to turn in the people really responsible.

Assuming that it wasn't all a hoax, of course. He looked at his watch. "11:01. Maybe --"

_**BLAM!**_

All sorts of sensations buffeted Will. The concussion of the blast, the frightening tinkling sound of the glass, shouts from the crowd, heat as parts of the building caught fire. But as he recovered from the original shock, one thought was uppermost:

_Somebody has struck a blow against civilization. And it's my duty to find them._

TBC


	2. Fallout

**Chapter 2 Fallout**

_(Author's Note: I first came across the Rubaiyat quote in Isaac Asimov's science-fiction story THE END OF ETERNITY, about attempts to "unwrite" the past)_

"Jane! Jane!" called out Adam in the crowded school hallway.

"Here I am. What's wrong?" she asked, noticing his unusual agitation.

"Have you heard? Somebody tried to blow up City Hall."

_"What! _Is my Dad okay?" A second later she remembered that Adam's father was also employed at the police station. "Your dad?"

"Nobody's hurt. Just a lot of damage. It was my Dad that called."

"I'd better find Luke before he hears something worse." Much as she'd rather stay and exchange endearments with her lover, finding Luke was more important. She tried to remember what classes he would be leaving or going to at this point, and headed toward the proper wing.

"Hey, Girardi," came a familiar female voice. Joan recognized it immediately; nobody but Grace called her Girardi. The girl caught up with Joan. "Do you know where your idiot brother went? He was supposed to meet me in the biology closet this morning to -- um -- take inventory," she concluded lamely.

"No," said Joan, who knew perfectly well what the pair did in the biology closet. "But have you heard the news? Somebody tried to blow up City Hall."

"Yeah. Weird bit of timing. If it had happened two years ago, it could have eliminated a lot of problems--"

"Not funny, Grace," said Joan coldly. Usually she ignored Grace's rhetoric when she did not agree with it, but today the danger to her father made her more sensitive.

Grace turned red as she realized her faux pas. "Um, I suppose not. I--"

"But I didn't have anything to do with it!" protested a girl's voice behind Joan.

"But you may know who did it," accused somebody else in a threatening tone. "You A-rabs always stick together."

"I'm not Arab, I'm Turkish. Please--"

"It's Maggie!" exclaimed Grace. "She's in trouble." She rushed past Joan to intervene.

Joan felt a sickening sense of déjà vu. On the first day of school this year, a group of bigots had attacked the Turkish immigrant girl Morgiana Begh, for no other reason than the fact that she wore a Muslim veil. Grace and Joan had to her defense, and Grace had later been beaten up. The incident seemed to have blown over, but now, in the wake of a mysterious bombing, Maggie was again being singled out for harassment.

"Lay off, jerks."

"Mind your own business, bitch."

"This is my business, ------", replied Grace, using a phrase that made Joan's ears burn. "Ow!"

The bullies had not taken kindly to Grace's insult, and looked like the zealous girl was in over her head. Joan rushed over, pushed the closest bully aside, and tried to pull Grace away. But Grace resisted, and somebody whacked Joan on the side of the head, knocking her down.

The blow made her dizzy, and she watched fuzzily as the fight picked up momentum. This wasn't like fall, when students had simply watched. This time people were picking sides.

Somebody pulled her to her feet. She tried to fight it, but he said "I'm trying to protect you. Come on."

He pulled her aside, then dove back into the affray. By that time Joan recognized him: it was the school quarterback. He had friends, and they gradually succeeded in pulling the combatants apart.

"Attention!" said Price's voice over the intercom. "School is now suspended. Everybody must leave the property immediately."

Typical, thought Joan as she went back to retrieve her dropped books. Don't stop the violence, just push it off school property so it's no longer his problem.

"Hi," said her brother's voice. She turned to see Luke and Grace. Luke was holding his glasses and seemed to be developing a black eye. Grace showed no obvious bruise, but her motorcycle jacket was torn and her usually slicked-down hair was mussed.

"Are you guys OK?" asked Joan in concern.

"Not entirely," admitted Grace. "But I'd feel worse if I hadn't intervened."

"Yeah," mumbled Luke. He did not sound entirely convincing, but obviously he didn't want to contradict his girlfriend.

With her head still hurting, Joan got out her cellphone and called the bookstore, to tell Sammy she couldn't show up and he would have to perform her duties. In older days a curt, non-explanatory message like that might have gotten her fired, but nowadays she reported to the home office in Boston and did not fear Sammy's wrath. She may have to explain things to the home office, but she'd take care of that later.

------------------------------------

When Luke and Joan arrived at home, their mother was talking to Lily at the kitchen table. Lily was saying: "I don't care about political correctness in this case. I'm his wife, and I don't want Kevin in danger when he can't run from it. He may be annoyed to be left behind in the newspaper office, but I'm relieved -- though I'd prefer that you didn't repeat that to him."

"I agree about discretion being better," said Helen, "I won't tell him."

"I won't snitch either," called out Joan.

The two adults started at her voice, and turned toward them. "You two are early," commented Helen. "I -- what happened to you?"

"We got in a fight," Joan said curtly.

Helen opened her mouth and closed it again. Apparently she had intended to question them and decided that other things took priority. "Sit down. I'll go get the first-aid kit from upstairs. Excuse me, Lily."

"Excuse me, my ass," said the former nun. "I'll help. I'm family, and I used to work in a Catholic hospital as part of my duties. I'll tend Joan, and you look after Luke."

"OK."

Lily glanced at her watch as her mother-in-law went upstairs. "Helen' s right; you two are early. Did you get kicked out of school?"

"Everybody did," said Joan. "The news of the bombing created a big fight, and Price closed school early and told everybody to go home."

"Really? That's great. I mean, that's terrible, but it gives me a great idea." Lily rushed to the kitchen phone and punched in a number. "Hello, darling. It's Lily. Did you hear that they closed down Arcadia High early because of the emergency? What do you mean, so what? It's a human-interest story, something you can write without being near the bomb site. Well, at least think about it." She hung up. "I think he'll do it, once he gets over his machismo."

"Great," said Joan. "I got a headache, but Kevin's got his story." A sudden impulse made her look at Luke. He had scarcely said a word since the fight, leaving it to Joan to make conversation. He looked pensive. If it weren't for the black eye, she might have thought he was staring into space. Yet SHE was the one who got hit on the head.

Helen came down with the first-aid kit, and the two older women got to work. Lily certainly didn't strike Joan as the Sister-of-Mercy type, but she was skillful in tending to the bump on her head, eventually getting an ice pack for the swelling. Meanwhile he heard Luke groan a bit, then ultimately thank his mother. Still no discussion of the original event.

Dinner was a dull affair. Usually her father was there, treating the sharing of food as a sort of secular ritual, replacing the religious ceremonies that he had rejected. But Dad wasn't here; he had already called to say he would be working on the case late into the evening.

After dinner Joan went upstairs to lie down. Maybe Luke was silently right: the key was not to dwell on today's events ad nauseum. How to distract herself? She picked up her portable CD player and put in her favorite disk. Time for some relaxing music. She managed to fit on her headphones so that they didn't rub the injured area.

_"Hello, Joan." s_aid a voice in her headphones.

She jumped. "You haven't written over my favorite song, have You?"

_"I can reverse the process, Joan. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for physical events. 'The Moving Finger writes; and having writ / moves on; nor all your piety nor wit / shall lure it back to cancel half a line / nor all your tears wash out a word of it'. The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam."_

"Gee, thanks. What does a ruby yacht have to do with my being bumped in the head?"

_"Rubaiyat is a form of Persian poetry, but that's neither here not there."_

"No, it isn't. You didn't take over my CD to give me a lecture on poetry, did You?"

_."No, to give you advice. Be careful to think first and act wisely in any emergency."_

"You mean another emergency's coming up? Worse than today's?"

Silence.

"You know, I've got moving fingers too. Would You like me to give You one?" She wouldn't have the nerve to make the actual gesture, but He could read her mind to tell what she had in mind. She had learnt over the years that the Deity would put up with a certain amount of cheekiness, but there had to be limits..

_"It would not be a good idea, Joan. Focus your hostility elsewhere, toward the evil in the world."_

"All right. What about Luke, and Grace, and Adam?"

_"I'm giving them the same warning, though reinforcing it among yourselves by mutual discussion would be good."_

"OK. Now that you've delivered my warning, can I have my music back?"

In answer, the CD started playing her tune. But it wasn't as soothing as it had been before.


	3. The Backward Trail

**Chapter 3 The Backwards Trail**

_(Author's Note: Although I program computers for a living, I don't know whether an anonymous EMail message can be traced in the way described. Please accept it for the sake of the general story)_

The next morning, at the office, Will carefully read the local paper. He didn't expect to find any information that he didn't already know, but he thought it important to find out what information the public was getting. He was rather impressed to see that the newspaper was avoiding too much speculation, frankly admitting that the investigation was still under wraps.

One of the subsidiary articles had Kevin's name on it, and Will read that out of simple fatherly pride. Kevin had persuaded the editor to let him cover the fight at school (Lily's idea, according to Helen) and had interviewed several students and their parents over the phone. Will found the reaction of Rabbi Polonski, Grace's father, particularly interesting.

Rabbi Polonski _If a man walks up to a woman on the street and threatens to beat her up, we call that "assault" and he gets sent to prison as a felon. But when it happens in a school it's called "bullying" and considered somehow inevitable. In this case a girl is singled out for attack simply because she is Muslim. My daughter has to go to her rescue, then she requires rescuing herself. I don't even know why those football players got involved--_

Interviewer: (Kevin) _The quarterback told me in an interview that he liked Miss Begh, because she let his girlfriend go horseback riding at her farm._

RPi_: It was nice of him, but completely accidental. Where were the authorities in all this? They should have been creating an atmosphere of peace and tolerance, and if they failed in that, at least punished the violence after the fact.._

Interviewer_: Don't you think it's somewhat ironic, a Jewish girl going to the defense of a Muslim one?_

(Will knew that was a deliberate leading question to get a certain response from the rabbi. Kevin knew Grace well enough to know that she would not let ethnic differences get in the way of justice, even if the bond was far less intense than the one Grace had with his younger siblings Joan and Luke. In the fiction of the article he was an objective interviewer, with no prior acquaintance with the subject)

RP _This isn't a matter of Jew and Muslim, or Christian for that matter. It's a matter of oppressor and oppressed_.

Will did not usually agree with religious figures, but in this case he and the rabbi were in full agreement, without even having spoke to each other. Like the rabbi, Will was simultaneously proud that his kids went to the aid of a victim, and angry that it was necessary, and that they got hurt in the process.

He hastily put the paper down as Calvin Lader came in. Lader was one of the forensic experts sent from Baltimore and Washington to help with the investigation. Fortunately he respected Will's authority rather than regarding him as a bumbling local. Although Will had a legitimate reason to read the paper, he did not want to look as if he was loafing. "Have you found something?"

Lader put a paper on Will's desk; it was a copy of the bomb warning. "We think so. Whoever put this message on the Internet was very clever about concealing its origin. However, we have been able to trace the passage of the message through various nodes of the Net, and connect the dots going backward."

"And--?"

"We think the message originated at the local high school."

Will's heart sank. He wanted to protect his kids against horrors like the bombing, yet not only had it sparked a fight at the school yesterday, but it now seemed that somebody at the school knew about the bombing before it happened. Even if the message turned out to be a conscientious warning, it meant that somebody at the school was deeply entangled in criminal activities. "Come on, we'll pay them a visit."

This was one of those occasions in which Will was glad to be a plainclothesman and not a uniformed cop. Having a recognizable policeman stride through the school corridors might scare the students, already on edge after yesterday. As it was the only one who seemed to spot them was Luke, who crossed paths with them in the hall. Will made a don't-break-my-cover gesture, one that the family had agreed on years before, and he walked past.

Will had heard a lot of rotten things about Vice-Principal Price, not only from his kids, who might be expected to dislike the authority figure, but even from Helen, who had worked in his office for one year and as a teacher for another. Nor did his first sight of the official make Will feel any warmer. Price looked very much on the defensive; apparently a lot of parents agreed with the rabbi about the fight, and had called the office to say so. As a professional investigator Will automatically disliked an official whose first instinct was to push a problem out of his territory instead of finding who was responsible. Will suggested that Lader, who had no prior contact with Price, handle the interview.

"We have two networks here," Price said in answer to Lader's questions. "One for administration, and one for the student's lab. It used to be a single network, but clever students found out how to hack into our office files."

Lader seemed to find that amusing, but maintained his composure. "Do you have specs on the two -- ah, the student lab is the one we want. Could you show us?"

Price nodded and ushered the two out of the inner office. As they passed the clerks in the other office, one spoke up: "Mr. Price, Mrs. Figlioli wishes to speak with you."

Will could guess as well as Price what that was about. Glynis Figlioli was pregnant; and obviously her mother wanted to be sure of her safety given her condition.

"Take a message," he said curtly. Out in the hallway, he asked: "What time period are we talking about?"

"10:40 at the latest," said Lader. "Maybe the fifteen minutes before that."

"We had assembly during that period," said Price. "Everybody was supposed to be in the gym, not the computer lab."

"Which would give the user all the more opportunity to work undetected," said Will. "Would there be a monitor in the lab?"

"No, they'd be at the assembly too."

"So we may end up scouring the entire student body plus employees looking for a witness."

Lader favored a more hardware approach: simply sit at each computer and look at records of each use. Price soon got bored and slipped out, though Will was sure that he would continue dodging Mrs. Figlioli. "Hmm. This one says 'Johnny Mnemonic' logged in at 10:31."

"Maybe we should talk to this Mr. Nemonnik," said Will.

"No, you don't understand; Johnny Mnemonic is a sci-fi character. It's exactly the sort of name a hacker might pick if he was anxious to stay anonymous. Over-writing his real login record would take skill, though. I'd say this is the computer used to send the message."

"Better cover all bases, though."

"Right."

Lader was about finished with the computers when Price came back in, with a relieved look. "I think I might have a suspect."

"What?" asked Will.

"There was a student passing out inflammatory leaflets last week. Some mentioned bombs."

"Do you have his name?"

"Her name. Grace Polk."

"Oh. I see." Will, who was about to take his notebook out of his pocket, thrust it back deeper. "Lader, if you're finished, we can go back to headquarters and compare notes with the other investigators. If that fails, we may have to come back here another day and look for witnesses."

Lader stayed silent until they got out of the school, but once in the police care he expressed misgivings. "I followed your lead because this is territory that you're familiar with, but why didn't you follow up Mr. Price's clue? Polk something?"

"I know Grace Polk," said Will. "Friend of my kids. Likes talking radical, but she'd never hurt anybody. She has stayed at our house a number of nights this fall." He was not going to mention that she had spent one of those nights, Luke's birthday, in the boy's bed. The kids had been cautious and promised not to do the stunt again, and Will had let it slide.

"In other words, you've got a conflict of interest."

"I just don't want an innocent to get in trouble. Price was anxious to find a scapegoat because everybody's questioning his handling of yesterday's fight."

Lader stopped arguing, and when they got into the station, he went off to talk to the forensics crew. Will went on to report to Bruson.

His boss was talking to a short, blond woman whose back was to Will. "Ah, Will. We've gotten another advisor from Washington. It's someone you've worked with before."

The woman turned around. "Hello, Will."

It was Lucy Preston.

TBC


	4. The Questioning

**Chapter 4 The Questioning**

_(AUTHOR'S NOTE: Miss Lischak's lecture on genetics is based on the science book THE GENOME, by Matt Ridley)_

Grace used to consider schoolwork sheer drudgery, a meaningless ritual invented to torture students. But in the past two years she had gradually come to value some of the schoolwork, for two reasons. One was her bond with Luke, who always wanted to learn something new, even though he disliked the social side of school nearly as much as she did. It wasn't so much that knowledge was power, but knowledge was pleasure. If it meant so much to him, it must be important.

The second experience was the job she had had over the "Christmas" holidays, working on a farm owned by cousins of Luke's. She had been put in charge of a field of genetically altered wheat, a strain which was being evaluated as a possible solution to famine in the Third World. In spite of her devotion to the task, the wheat had died, due to a flaw on its artificial genetic structure. That was a big lesson to Grace: ardor wasn't enough, knowing How Things Worked was crucial. And so nowadays she really did pay attention to Miss Lischak as she lectured.

"Nowadays," said the teacher, "understanding of the genome is so extensive that when we find a flaw in its workings, we don't just dismiss it as a breakdown, but wonder: why is it there? Normally, if a flaw is serious enough, the organism possessing it would not reproduce, and so the flaw would die out in a generation. So the flaw must be there for a reason."

Grace nodded to herself. The G.E. wheat that she had worked on hadn't been bred for generations, but artificially produced. So it had flaws that wouldn't occur in naturally evolved plants, and caught the biologists off guard.

"The first known example of the phenomenon came during research into a genetic African disease called sickle-cell anemia. The cause, it turned out, was two copies of a certain mutant gene. But why had the gene not died out? Because it turned out that the pairing of a mutant gene and a healthy one gave you resistance to malaria -- and for most of African history, that was a good thing. Sickle-cell anemia existed for a REASON. Nowadays, we know of other diseases -- Yes?" she interrupted herself with annoyance, as one of the hall monitors walked in. Lischak always had a sense of the dramatic, and hated having her performance disrupted.

"Is Grace Polk in this class? Mr. Price wants her in the principal's office."

"Why?" called out Grace.

"I don't know, Miss. I was just told to deliver the message."

If Grace had been somebody else she would have been humiliated to be torn out of class in front of her fellow students. But she was Grace Polk, and it was scarcely the first time it had happened to her.

When Grace reached Price's office, she saw a small middle-aged blonde woman sitting at his desk. She did not look particularly dangerous -- which went to prove that looks can be deceiving.

"Miss Polk, this is Captain Lucy Preston from Washington. She's helping the local police investigating the City Hall bombing, and she would like to ask you some questions."

"Me? Why?"

"Because you might have be able to answer them," Preston said, dryly but softly. "Your vice-principal will stand by to make sure things do not get out of hand."

_Out of hand? What was going on?_

"Do you recognize this?" asked the woman, handing over a leaflet.

TEN YEARS AGO THE GUYS AT THE PENTAGON WORKED ON SOMETHING CALLED THE RADIATION BOMB, WHICH KILLED PEOPLE BUT LEFT PROPERTY INTACT. THAT'S THEIR SENSE OF PRIORITIES. WOULDN'T YOU PREFER A BOMB THAT SPARED PEOPLE AND WRECKED YOUR ENEMY'S PROPERTY? OR MAYBE NO BOMBS AT ALL?

IT'S YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK. IT'S TIME FOR AN ACCOUNTING.

"Yeah," Grace said reluctantly. "I passed them out last week for a, um, club I belong to."

"So you agree with the contents?"

"I agree that the Pentagon shouldn't spend money to invent new bombs."

"But what about the line about wrecking your enemy's property?"

"That was sarcasm, put in for shock effect. To make people think."

"Contrary to what you may believe, Miss Polk, most people are capable of thinking, without being "made" to. Even if you don't like their conclusions," Preston said coldly.

Something in that voice chilled Grace. For the first time in a long string of encounters with Authority, Grace was starting to feel nervous. "Yeah. Maybe. I wasn't the one that wrote that line."

"Ah yes, your club. Do you know who did?"

"There was a group of guys."

"Names?"

"Yeah, they all had names."

"I mean, can you give me some of their names?"

"I can, but I don't see why I have to. It's a free country. Supposed to be, anyway."

Preston's eyes narrowed, as if hoping to drill into Grace. Finally: "Very well, let us bring up another topic. Where were you at 10:30 on Wednesday morning?"

That was two days ago, the day of the big afternoon free-for-all. Grace thought back. "I was at an assembly in the gym. Price was giving a pompous speech." The present Price looked annoyed at that but held his tongue.

"What was the speech about?"

"I don't remember. Ask HIM."

"I'm asking you. You were there but don't remember the speech topic?"

"I wasn't listening. I rarely do. What's this about?"

"Somebody sent a message from the school computer lab to City Hall, warning that the bombs would explode."

"And you think it was me?" The fear was growing greater.

"Merely checking into possibilities. Look, Grace." Preston leaned forward, as if that and the use of Grace's first name would create an illusion of friendliness. "Emailing the warning was a GOOD thing. It saved a lot of lives. If you get in trouble about other things, that might be considered mitigating circumstances--"

"Is that an accusation?"

Preston drew back suddenly, as if Grace had said a magic word. "Of course not."

"I didn't have anything to do with the bombing, and I didn't send any Email. I helped save a Muslim girl from bullies, but nobody seems to care about that. Is there anything else?"

Preston shut her notebook with a snap. "Not now, Miss Polk. We may have more questions later."

-----

"Grace?"

The girl whirled around at the sound of her name in the crowded hallway. "Yes?"

Joan looked startled. "Wow, that's the quickest response I ever got out of you. What's wrong?"

Grace pulled her friend into an empty classroom to talk. "There was some bitch from the police, hinting that I had something to do with the bombing. And Price was standing there enjoying it all." It was curious: for years Grace had considered herself at war with Authority, and prided herself on her stance. But today, now that she had actually confronted a member of the police who suspected her of something, Grace no longer felt bold. She felt terrified. She poured out her story.

"Oh my God. I -- you better come to my house, and talk to Dad."

"The enemy?"

"He's my Dad and he's honest. He'll level with you. Then we'll bring Luke and Adam in. See if we can get help from You-Know-Who. Make it a sleepover."

"My parents won't let me sleepover." It was a measure of Grace's angst that the idea of fibbing to her parents did not occur to her, even though she had done it dozes of times in her life.. "After last time--"

Joan went red, doubtlessly remembering what happened "last time": she had caught Grace in bed with Luke without any clothes on. But she plowed on. "Tell your parents the truth: that you're in trouble and may need Dad's help."

"All right."

-----

Joan was right, in at least one sense. Talking to Mr. Girardi, Grace felt none of the malice that seemed to radiate from Captain Preston. He was angry, but not at her. Joan, Luke, Adam, and Mrs. G sat by without interfering, though Grace noticed a scowl on the mother's face when she mentioned Lucy Preston.

"I'm not supposed to say this," said Mr. Girardi, "but Lucy can be very manipulative, trying to entrap somebody into making an admission. She didn't give you the Miranda warning, did she?"

"No," said Grace.

"Then even if you admitted to something, it can't be used against you in court. I think she was basically trying to scare you, to get information on your 'club'."

"None of them would have done this." Grace insisted

"Unfortunately, saying so does not seem to get you far with Lucy Preston. I tried to talk the others out of involving the school in the case; unfortunately, all that accomplished was that they decided I was "too close" to that part of the investigation. That's how Lucy got assigned to the school. My advice, Grace, is to find a lawyer and insist on his being present at all future interviews. Not Mr. Price."

"Thanks, Mr. Girardi." Though Grace was not entirely reassured. A lawyer would work only in an open court. Mr. Girardi implied that Lucy Preston could fight dirty -- and she wasn't the only one. Grace had read newspapers about "terror suspects"---

"And now," declared Joan with a faux-cheerfulness that fooled absolutely no one, "we can forget this police stuff and concentrate on homework! It'll be just like old times."

"Except that I'm new to the group," said Adam. "Different schedule this semester."

As the four teens went up the stairs, Grace heard Mr. Girardi say to his wife: "Something peculiar is going on. Did you ever see four teenagers so thrilled with doing schoolwork at the beginning of a weekend?"

"Nope," said Mrs. Girardi glumly. "Whatever it is that used to make Joan to do odd things, it looks like they've all caught it now."

------

Four people crowded into Joan's bedroom made quite a crowd, particularly since Adam had not been therefore and seemed to be trying not to think of the sexual implications. Joan took charge. Having spoken to God for two years longer than the others, she was the natural leader.

"OK. Has anybody had recent encounters with Mysterious Strangers?"

"That weird little girl visited my shed," volunteered Adam. "She repeated the advice about being wise and cautious."

"Nothing else?" The others shook their heads. "All right, it looks like we're on our own with this."

"The logical thing would be to figure out who really did send that message," said Grace.

"That's a computer problem," observed Adam, "so maybe Luke can look into it.

"There's no point," said Luke.

"Of course there's a point!" exclaimed Joan. "Whoever sent the message will know SOMETHING about the bombs, and can clear Grace's name."

"I understand THAT," said Luke. "But there's no point in trying to find who sent that anonymous Email. I already know. I was the one that sent it."


	5. Nightmares and Stallions

**Chapter 5 Nightmares and Stallions**

"But how did you know about the bomb?" asked his sister.

"How do you think?" answered Luke in exasperation. "Divine revelation. Goth God comes up at 10:00, says I have one hour to avert a disaster. So I sneak into the computer lab and write the message while everybody thinks I'm at the assembly. Fortunately nobody notices I'm missing. I guess I'm like that," he added bitterly.

"But how did you cover up your identity online?" asked Adam.

"Fortunately, I had done it before. Last fall we tried to send an Email to Ryan Hunter without getting tracked back. I persuaded Friedmann to teach me some tricks. I remembered how to do it. But if somebody gets through all that and traces it back to me, what am I supposed to say? That voices told me to send the message?"

"Let's focus on the more immediate problem," pursued Grace. "Goth God didn't tell you who really did it?"

"Nope. That would be too easy. Apparently we're supposed to figure out that part -- or let the grownups do it."

"Let's think," said Joan. "You didn't do it, Grace, and you claim your "club" didn't do it, but maybe somebody in the club knows somebody that did it. I mean, it WAS pretty radical. What's that Internet name called, Luke?"

"Six Degrees of Separation. This would be three degrees."

"OK. You wouldn't tell Lucy Preston about your club members' names, Grace, but will you tell us? Then we can divvy them up, and ask each member what they know."

"Sounds good," said Adam.

"I hate to betray a confidence, but my ass is on the line here," said Grace miserably. "I'll give you the names before we separate tomorrow."

After that they discussed sleeping arrangements. They eventually decided that Adam would take Kevin's old room, Luke would keep his own, and that Grace would share Joan's. Grace tried to joke that Joan would have more fun with Adam, but it fell flat. The Girardis were still too upset about her own bed switch two months ago.

She did not mind sharing a room and bed with Joan, but she made sure that Joan wasn't around when she opened her suitcase. Joan might wonder why she had packed clothes for several days, and not just overnight. Eventually the two girls got in bed together, exchanged some trivial conversation, and fell asleep.

_Guards were dragging Agraciada Polca down a hall. She didn't seem to have any clothes on, but nobody seemed to notice that. That should have tipped Grace off that this was a dream, but it also fit the cruelty of the setting. Eventually they reached an office so ornate that it might be a throne room. And, indeed, the person who operated from here was one of the most powerful men of the Spanish Empire, the most extensive realm of the world._

_A man dressed in the robes of a monk entered. To Grace's eyes he looked like a peculiar cross between Mr. Price and Lucy Preston, but one of the guards said:_

_"Bow to the Grand Inquisitor, Tomas de Torquemada!"_

_"Mr. Turkey-manure here doesn't deserve my reverence," said Agraciada._

_One of the guards slapped her lower leg painfully with a stick, forcing her into a curtsey._

_"Senorita Polca, so far we have dealt gently with you, trying to appeal to your better nature," said Torquemada. "I will give you one more chance. Where have your co-religionists hidden their so-called holy books?"_

_"To use a phrase from your own holy book, I do not cast pearls before a swine," Agraciada said boldly. The goyim might eat pigs, but they still considered swine a vile insult._

_"Very well. Guards, conduct the Senorita to the torture chamber, and hold her until I decide upon the method of questioning. Place a hood over her head, so that she shall not see what her fate is until the pain begins. The foreboding might be enough to loosen her lips."_

_"No! I won't give in. Porca! Goy!" Agraciada struggled with the guards._

"Grace! Grace! Wake up! You're having a nightmare!" cried Joan.

Grace opened her eyes and found herself in Joan's bed. The bonds that she had struggled against turned out to be the bedspread, in which she was entangled. "What happened?"

"You were wiggling a lot and shouting something. I recognized "goy". I know that's a term for people like me--"

Grace felt herself turning red, and was glad that the room was too dark for Joan to notice that. "That wasn't meant for you. I dreamt that I was being questioned by the Spanish Inquisition."

"The Inquisition?"

"Supposedly they burned one of my ancestors at the stake. Their main targets were Jews, you know."

"I didn't know; I thought they were just nasty in general. But all that's centuries ago. Put it out of your head, and get some rest."

Grace pretended to comply, not wanting to let Joan know what was going through her mind. But as she lay silent afterward, pretending to sleep, she knew exactly what prompted her to dream of the Inquisition tonight.

The next morning she dutifully wrote out the members of her anarchist group and distributed the list among her three friends. But she had already decided on a more desperate strategy. After breakfast she asked her boyfriend: "Luke, can you drive me out to the Beghs' horse farm?"

"Sure."

"And promise not to tell anybody afterwards?"

Luke looked puzzled, but apparently thought it best not to pry into Grace's secrets. "OK".

------

For most of her adolescence, Grace had regarded horseback riding as a rich girl's silly indulgence. But this past summer, soon after being let into Joan's secret, she had been taught to ride by God Herself, in the guise of a skilled equestrienne. God prophesied that there was a future task in which the skill would be crucial. And though Grace could not afford to buy or maintain a horse of her own, God had arranged for her to meet the Beghs. Professor Begh was a scholar who lectured on Muslim culture at a nearby university, but his family had bred horses for generations in Turkey, and he had decided to continue the tradition in America. Thus Grace could go riding whenever she liked -- and it turned out that she did.

Today, though, was a serious business. It might even be the crisis that God had foretold, and that reasoning spurred Grace on.

After Luke dropped her off, Grace walked to the ornate Moorish porch and rang the doorbell. It was answered by a man who was dressed like a butler but looked like a prizefighter. The Beghs had evidently decided to hire a bodyguard. "Yeah?"

"I'd like to see Maggie Begh."

"She doesn't wanna see nobody."

"Tell her it's Grace Polk."

He shut the door and Grace, left in the cold, hoped that he would carry out the commission and not just leave her stranded outdoors several miles from town.

Eventually the door was reopened, by Maggie herself. She was dressed in a far more "Turkish" outfit than she had ever worn at school: colorful with broad pantaloons. It was probably her idea of lounging-around clothes. "Come in."

"I haven't seen you at school for the past few days," Grace commented, following her friend.

"No, Baba has decided to pull me out. He does not think it is safe for me anymore. He's debating whether to put me in a different school or send me home."

"I'm sorry."

"Oh, it is certainly not YOUR fault. You saved me from bullies. Twice, actually. And I have never returned the favor. Is there something I can do for you?"

"I know that it's an odd thing to ask, but could I borrow a horse?"

Maggie gave her an odd look. "That IS an odd request. Most schoolmates try to borrow pencils, and forget to return them. Will you be careful to return the horse when you're done?"

"Um---" Grace hadn't planned that far.

"Never mind. Let me put on something warm, and we'll go to the stables."

Grace followed the Turkish girl to her bedroom. She put on a heavy coat, then, as an afterthought, opened a jewelry box and took out two bracelets, which she shoved into a pocket. Then they went through another corridor to a side door. From there a path led to the stables.

Maggie let them in and shut the stable door behind her. Inside the air was warm but, rather inevitably, stank of horse droppings. She dropped her sardonic manner altogether.

"I may be new to your country, Grace, but I am not a dummy. You are in trouble, right?"

"Yeah. They think I had something to do with the bombing. And I'm dealing with police, not school bullies."

"I do not know what American prisons are like, but in Turkey--" she shuddered. "And you want to get away by riding on a horse. It is an odd choice. This is the twenty-first century, not the nineteenth."

"That's the idea. I don't drive, myself. If somebody else drives me, they get implicated. If I buy a ticket for a train or bus, they can trace it and find out where I'm going. But a horse won't leave a trail."

Maggie snorted. "Oh, really? Ever clean up behind a horse?"

"Actually, yes. But out in the country, who's going to go CSI on every pile of crap they find, and deduce it's from my mount?"

"Right." Maggie surveyed the horses in their stalls with an expert eye. From Grace's point of view, it was simply a long string of horses' rears. "I'll give you Ajax. He's not the fastest horse, but he's the hardiest. You can ride him for hours, and he can put up with the cold weather."

"Thanks. You named a horse after a detergent?"

"No, a Trojan War hero. Troy was in Turkey. Just keep in mind that a horse is not a car. It feels cold, and get tired. You can't simply drive it until it "runs out of petrol". No matter how desperate you feel, you MUST give it periods of rest."

"I understand."

Maggie went into an adjoining store-room. "We have our address engraved on every saddle. If you turn the horse loose at some point, and an honest person finds it, we'll get the horse back."

_And if a dishonest person decides to throw away a saddle and keep a valuable horse, the Beghs will be out several thousand dollars. Maggie's really going out on a limb for me._

They opened Grace's suitcase and tried to stuff her possessions into a pair of saddlebags. It looked like Grace would have to leave some stuff behind. But Maggie drew the bracelets from her pocket. "If you get short of money, you can take these to a moneylender -- how do you say it in English?"

"Pawnshop." Grace had never had to visit one before, but that was the least of her difficulties today.

"Tell me where they are afterward and I will buy them back."

_Possibly paying for them twice. _"Maggie, you're taking a lot of risk."

"Bah, it is just money. This is friendship."

_It's easy to be generous with money when you have a lot of it_, thought Grace, then was a bit ashamed of the catty thought.

Maggie saddled Ajax, then led him outdoors by the reins. Grace put her foot in the stirrup and hoisted herself up into the saddle, taking the reins from Maggie. As usual when she mounted a horse, she felt conflicting emotions. First a sense of power at having a strong beast at her command, and at looking down on mere mortals from ten feet high. Then a realistic appraisal: a girl on horseback was easy outmatched by a powerful police force. All she could do was gallop away.

"Thank you for everything, Maggie."

"Good luck, Grace."

She urged her steed into a gallop, and began her flight.

TBC


	6. Forensics

**NOT WITH A BANG**

**Chapter 6 Forensics**

_(AUTHOR'S NOTE: Charles Epps is the mathematician-detective from NUMBERS. I don't have any rights to use him, either, so the usual disclaimers apply.)_

It was Saturday, and Will wasn't technically required to go to work, but the situation seemed to demand it. Besides, there was a tactical reason. Lucy's investigation of the high school could go nowhere during the weekend. If Will could crack the case in two days, it would save the kids from further harassment.

One of the consultants from Washington didn't fit in with the rest. He struck Will as a larger, louder version of Adam: long dark hair and an air of listening to a different drummer. Eventually Will found out that he wasn't really a government agent, but a mathematics professor who did a lot of consulting with them. Since he happened to be in Washington at the time of the bombing (his actual home was in Los Angeles) they had sent him to Arcadia. The bombs had destroyed themselves in the very act of blowing up, and Epps was supposed to figure out where they had been.

"The bomb created tremendous outward force. By noting how things moved and working backwards, we can find the epicenter of the explosion. You see?"

Will wasn't familiar with the word "epicenter", but he could guess from context. It was where the bomb was.

"The measurements didn't make sense until I hypothesized that there were THREE epicenters. Each one was in similar place when checked the blueprints: the closet off of a men's room."

"Somebody managed to smuggle in THREE bombs?" Will asked incredulously.

"Not too likely, is it?" agreed Epps. "More probable that somebody brought in the parts of the bomb, disguised as something harmless, and assembled it onsite. My guess is that he hid in a stall of the men's room to put it together, then just dashed to the closet."

"We're talking about a "he", then?"

"Not necessarily. A woman in disguise could have done it. Who would think much of seeing a vaguely masculine figure enter or leaving a men's room?"

Will frowned. A woman like Joan could never for an instant pass herself off as anything but female. On the other hand, Grace could have pulled it off. "Can you deduce anything about the bomber?"

"Usually I leave the profiling to Megan in Los Angeles, but I can speculate. The fact that "he" could construct the bomb onsite implies skill with explosives. The fact that he planted three bombs may point to something in his character. Maybe he thought some bombs wouldn't work and he would need "backup". Or maybe it's a measure of emotion -- he doesn't just want to blow up the building, he wants to do it THOROUGHLY. The fact that he used the same strategy three times, rather then improvising, shows that he is methodical. Did you notice more than one explosion?"

"No. Though my senses were rather stunned by the first blast."

"Then he programmed the three to go off at exactly the same time. Timers completely synchronized. Rather fastidious, don't you think? In short, a cold character who plans everything in detail and sticks to it -- definitely not your stereotypical wild bomb thrower."

All that just from looking at debris. Will had made the wrong comparison: Epps was Luke turned investigator. Too bad he couldn't introduce the two; the professor was flying back to California tonight. At least the profile sounded nothing like Grace--

Will had to remind himself: simply clearing Grace was not his job. His goal was to catch the bomber.

Talking to City Hall security was a big letdown after Epps. Yes, they kept track of everybody who entered the building, and entered their names on a computer. But those computer records had been destroyed by the bomb. No, they didn't have offsite backups. Will found himself wondering if the security company had gotten its contract years ago through cronyism, rather than competence. Something to look into after the big mystery was solved.

With no machine records to consult, Will had to spend most of the day finding and interviewing the security guards. Certainly a man trying to bring hardware into City Hall would be noticed, if only because his timer was likely to set off the metal-detectors at each door. But the guards all denied seeing anybody suspicious enter the building, either during the day or the night.. So either there was an unguarded entrance somewhere or one of the guards was lying. Hypothesis: some guard accepted a bribe to let somebody in, not realizing what would happen. When the bomb did go off, the guard realized that he was an accessory to a serious crime and had to keep his mouth shut.

Will hated this pervasive sense of corruption. Though not generally mythologically minded, he had heard the story of the Hydra, who grew back a limb or head whenever you chopped one off.

It fit criminal organizations perfectly. In a perfect society, Will felt, an evildoer would by contrast stick out like a sore thumb.

Eventually Will reached home at 4:30, having accomplished very little. There was an extra car parked outside the house, and when Will walked in his front door, he found Rabbi Polonski having coffee with Helen. The rabbi immediately looked up and said: "Grace is missing."

"What?!"

"I haven't seen her all day. At first I thought nothing of it; I knew that she enjoyed visiting your family. But after Sabbath services were over I happened to call over here, and your wife said that she had left early this morning."

_Great. Lucy will love this development. The guilty flee where none pursueth. And even leaving Lucy out of it, Grace could be in big trouble_. "What do the kids say?"

"They don't know anything," said Helen.

Oh, really. Will had heard that before, it was called _stonewalling_, and there were ways around it. But this was his family, not witnesses at a police station. "I'll have a talk with them. Where are they?"

"Upstairs in Joan's room, I think," said Helen.

Will proceeded up the stairs.

The kids looked startled as Will came in, as if he had startled them in some secret conversation. That was odd. Up until last summer, he would have thought Joan and Luke followed very separate paths. Luke was into science and Joan was into, well, a lot of stuff, one at a time. Nowadays they spent a lot of time together, doing -- what?

_It doesn't matter. Concentrate on the current crisis. _

"Are you aware that Grace is missing?"

"Yes, Dad," replied Joan. "We're trying to figure out where she could be."

"Any luck?" The kids weren't professionals, but they knew the girl very well, and might have a valuable idea.

"Not really."

"Not really? Do you have any lead?"

Luke seemed to think for a few seconds, and said, "No."

Luke did not lie very well.

"Luke, Joan, if you know anything, please tell me. Grace's safety may depend on it. "To you, Grace may seem like a resourceful girl, and she is, in this sheltered corner of the world. But I've seen what happens to girls who try to strike out on their own in their world. They find it difficult to find or hold decent jobs. With no job, it's difficult to get decent shelter. Eventually they has to depend on somebody else, without much experience in sizing up people and their motives."

"Maybe they'll be lucky and find a decent mentor," Will went on. "But frequently they find a predator who thinks he thinks that they should "repay" his efforts. And if they don't "repay", he uses force. Or maybe he is dominated by greed more than lust, and decides to share them around for a fee. Where do you think most prostitutes come from?"

"For heaven's sake, Daddy!" said Joan, crying. Luke was turning white.

"I'm not telling you this to distress you! I'm warning you what could happen to Grace if we don't find her. If one of you has the key--?"

"I drove her to the Beghs this morning," blurted out Luke.

"The Beghs?"

"Yeah. She made me promise not to tell. And that's it. I really don't know anything else."

Joan, sobbing, shook her head.

_The promise meant that the visit was part of a plan, not just a casual courtesy_. "And normally I'd expect you to keep promises, Luke. But don't feel guilty. This particular breach may save her life."

But Luke still looked white, and Joan was still crying as he left the room. After all, there was no guarantee that Grace was still at the Beghs, unless she was actually hiding out there. If she had moved on, the trail might have withered and the girl was still in danger.

He cursed Lucy for targeting Grace and mashing his work into his home life. But being a hardheaded rationalist, he knew that cursing would do little good. What he needed to do was solve the case.


	7. Fathers and Daughters

**NOT WITH A BANG**

**Chapter 7 Fathers and Daughters**

Rabbi Polonski knew he was a failure as a father.

For years he had been pre-occupied with the twin problems of weaning his wife off of alcohol and keeping the general problems out of the public eye. Only recently had he realized the devastating effect on his only child, who had grown up cynical, combative, and willfully ugly.

At that, he had been peculiarly lucky -- he might even say blessed. At least Grace had not turned out like Judith Montgomery, the self-destructive girl who had finally thrown her life away in a dark alley. Grace appreciated her religious heritage even if she refused to keep kosher, and if she was cynical and combative, it was because she had high ideals of how people SHOULD behave.

Recently things seemed to have been looking up. His wife had apparently kicked her habit for good. Grace had found a boyfriend who seemed to draw out the best in her. But it was too late. Grace's 18th birthday was fast approaching and she made it fairly clear that she intended to move out once she was a legal adult. In at least one way she had already put her childhood behind her, surrendering her virginity to the boy. He didn't really blame Luke for taking up her offer: it was his only failing from Polonski's point of view, and besides Luke was not the rabbi's responsibility.

And now this.

Grace had not been at Sabbath services today, but then, she frequently wasn't. The rabbi assumed that she was enjoying herself at the Giraldis. After the service he spoke to a lawyer in the congregation, Aaron Lowen, who agreed to be Grace's advisor, and even agreed to an appointment tonight in case Monday brought an early crisis. The rabbi then drove to the Girardis to pick up Grace and explain this development.

Grace wasn't there, and nobody seemed to know where she was. Helen, quickly intuiting that something was wrong, persuaded the rabbi to wait until Will came home and could look into it.

The rabbi called Lowen, canceling the appointment, and sat down to wait.

Will, when he came in, seemed to think his kids seemed to know something about it. He went up to talk with them, and came down again ten minutes later. "They say Grace went to visit her friend Maggie Begh at her farm. Do you know where that is?"

"I've dropped Grace off a couple of times to go horseback riding, though I've never been inside, or met the professor." The truth was that the rabbi had been putting off the meeting. The Muslim professor seemed genuinely nice to Grace, but suppose he was hostile toward Jewish "leaders"?

"Would you like me to come with you?" asked Will.

"No, I don't want it to look like a police inquiry. Just a father concerned about his daughter."

-----

The door was opened by a heavyset man who looked like a bodyguard, though he tried to look a butler. "Yeah?"

"I'm Grace Polk's father. I understand my daughter was here today--"

"Come in. I'll get the prof."

The rabbi entered and found himself in an ornate Moorish-style hall. The desert-like architecture contrasted oddly with the cold January weather outside, but the rabbi wasn't in the mood for aesthetics. He was relieved to hear approaching footsteps. A bald, bearded man entered.

"Good evening, Mr. Polk, I'm Professor Begh. You were asking about your daughter?"

He seemed friendly enough. He must know that the family was Jewish, even if that rabbi had not been wearing his yarmulke. Thank the Lord, a friendly Muslim. The rabbi decided to be careful, and avoid anything that sounded like an accusation. "My daughter and I have missed connections. I heard that she was here this morning, and might have mentioned where she was going." It sounded lame even to him; why come all this way instead of just calling on the phone? The professor looked as if he realized something serious was going on.

"I was out, but perhaps--?"

"The girl talked to your daughter," volunteered the bodyguard.

"I'll call her then. _MORGIANA!"_

"_Evet, baba?"_ A pretty girl in an exotic outfit entered.

"This is Grace Polk's father," the professor said in English. "He is looking for the girl."

"I have not seen her today."

The professor caught the contradiction immediately: either the bodyguard or the girl was lying about Grace. He stared at the bodyguard, who stood his ground. Then the professor turned to his daughter and spoke in a foreign language, presumably Turkish. The girl replied similarly, and this developed into a long conversation. Although he could not expect a father and daughter to use the foreign English language between themselves, he also felt that he was being deliberately excluded. Though fluent in both English and Hebrew, the rabbi could not make out a word of this language; he learnt later that Turkish was not Indo-European like English nor Semitic like Hebrew, but member of a third language family called the Altaic.

What the rabbi could follow were the general emotions involved. The girl seemed to be telling her father a long story. The father first seemed confused (asking a number of questions), then angry. The girl argued with her father for a while but seemed to lose out. Finally he ordered her out of the room, and she obeyed with a sulky demeanor.

The professor threw himself in a chair and seemed to be sorting through his daughter's news. The rabbi waited patiently. After all, any man would be reluctant to reveal his family's problems to an outsider.-- as the rabbi well knew. The host signaled for the bodyguard to go, something that would have amused Polonski on any other occasion. _Not in front of the servants_.

"Your daughter has left Arcadia, and my daughter helped her," the professor said finally.

"Left Arcadia? Why?"

"According to Morgiana, Grace said she was being pursued by the police."

" But I was making legal arrangements to protect Grace. But your daughter helped her run away?"

"She should not have acted without talking to me. Still, I can understand why Morgiana would be frightened at the idea of police. She has read stories about Guantanamo Bay and Abu Gharib. To you they may be something distant, but Morgiana is a Muslim --"

"I understand, and I am not blaming your daughter for doing what she thought was helpful." Grace always thought the worst of authority herself. The two girls probably had frightened each other to death with lurid stories of what could happen to Grace in police custody. "Do you have any idea where she went?"

"Morgiana last saw her riding southward. Away from Arcadia."

"_Riding?"_

"Morgiana loaned her one of our horses."

It sounded crazy, but made an odd sort of sense. How many people were likely to see her galloping across open country? And even if they did, who would get suspicious of a country girl seemingly going riding on her favorite horse on the weekend? "Do you mind talking to Chief Girardi? He might be able to guess where she went, but at the same time keep the incident quiet."

"I've met his daughter. Strange, but a nice girl. I'll do that. Mr. Polk, I'm sorry to meet in such anguished circumstances, but perhaps later--?"

"Yes, later."

They shook hands and parted.

The rabbi was careful not to tell his wife of the crisis. She had abstained for six months, but there was no telling what shock might send her back to drink. He gave her the impression that Grace was, again, sleeping over with friends. But he knew the truth, and knew that he would get little rest tonight. Fortunately he and his wife were used to sleeping separately.

The cell phone went off at about 11:30 that night. Polonski dashed into another room, then pressed the answer button, hoping that delay had not discouraged the caller.

"Dad?"

_"Grace?!_ Where are you?"

"I can't say that, Dad. But I wanted to call and tell you I was all right." She sounded exhausted.

"Grace, you MUST come home. I've lined up a lawyer--"

"It's safer this way. Gotta go--"

"Wait! Just tell me one thing. Do you have shelter? You could freeze to death, spending the night outside this time of year."

"I've got shelter. Don't worry. Bye."

"Grace---" but the connection was dead. The rabbi tried to dial her cell number, but nobody picked up. Grace had managed to stay beyond detection.

But at least she had called in an attempt to set their minds at rest. Regardless of all the problems over the years, she knew that her parents loved her.

TBC


	8. The Not So Quick, and the Dead

**NOT WITH A BANG**

**Chapter 8 The Not-So-Quick and the Dead**

"Dad, don't you have ANY leads about where Grace might be?" pleaded Joan at Sunday's breakfast. Grace had called the previous night to assure Luke that she was OK, and apparently had done the same with her parents. That had raised Joan's hope that they would soon get her back.

Her father sighed. He clearly didn't like discussing the case at this stage, but realized that the teens had to know. "A few ideas. There's only so far that a horse can reach in a day, and Professor Begh can probably give us a figure out of his expertise. That puts her within a certain circle centered on Arcadia. Maggie Begh said she started southward, though she may not have stayed in that direction. We know she reached shelter. My guess is that reached some small town near here, and checked into some cheap motel. I intend to get a picture of her from the Polonskis, and show it around various motels south of here."

"But what about her horse?" asked Luke, who had vacationed at his cousins' farm last summer and knew a little about tending animals. "Leaving it outside in January weather would be cruel, and a betrayal of Maggie's trust. Grace wouldn't do either of those things."

"I don't know. Maybe she paid a farmer to keep it in his stable overnight. If I find a farm near a motel on the outskirts of a town, that would be a good clue."

"At least it's progress." Joan said hopefully.

"Of a sort. But all this time that I'm spending tracking Grace is time that I'm NOT spending on investigating the bombing. And I can't call attention to her disappearance because I don't want Lucy to treat Grace as a fugitive. Once the work week begins tomorrow and I'm back on the bombing, I'll have to give Grace less priority, so I hope I solve it today."

He left soon after breakfast finished. Helen said she wanted to "work on a painting" -- a sign that she was moody and didn't want to be disturbed. Luke and Joan, thrown on their own resources, decided to go out for some fresh air, bundled up against the cold.

As they walked along the sidewalk, Joan noticed a number of cars heading to Father Ken's church and its Protestant counterparts. She hadn't attended church since early childhood, when her Dad's firm anti-clericalism prevailed over her Mom's weakening piety. There was Grace's bat-mitzvah, of course, but then her focus had been on Grace, not on worship. She wondered why God never complained about that. Because her missions were an acceptable substitute?

"I see Him coming," she muttered to her brother, not feeling too surprised. Given this week's crisis, she was surprised that it had taken Him this long to show up. She wanted how the various congregations would feel if they knew that their deity was presently walking on a sidewalk in shabby clothes and walking a pack of unruly dogs.

"I'm not talking to Him," stated Luke, turning around.

"Huh?"

"Last time we talked, it started ripples that got Grace in trouble. Until she's back, I'm going to say no. It's my free will, isn't it?"

He walked away as Dog-Walker God approached. Joan felt a silly impulse to tell some white lie to explain Luke's absence -- silly because he was omniscient and knew what had happened. Instead she stood her ground, a few feet away from the dogs. Ever since catching Lyme disease from a tick bite nearly two years ago, she had avoided contact with animals.

"Hello, Joan," said God.

"Hi. Do you where Grace is?"

"Yes."

After several seconds passed with no further elaboration, Joan sighed. "But you're not gonna tell me?"

"No. It would interfere with Grace's freedom of action."

"Freedom of action, my ass. She could be in danger!"

"She is not in any hardship except what she is imposing on herself."

_Gee, I suppose that's profound and I'm supposed to meditate on it._ But Joan was not in a contemplative mood. "What can I do?"

"Visit the cemetery."

"What?"

"You've got friends buried there -- Rocky, Judith, Adam's mother. You can pay them your respects."

He advanced, and Joan dodged sideways in a driveway to let the stupid dogs pass by. He made his characteristic wave.

Joan looked down at her clothes. A heavy gray coat, and jeans. Not exactly mourning, but nothing too gaudy for a trip to the graveyard.

--------

"Excuse me, Miss?"

"Yes?" replied Joan, turning in the walkway. She found herself facing a young man, tall, blonde but deeply tanned, in Sunday clothes.

"Can you direct me to the Forest Hill section?"

Joan had visited the cemetery often enough to know her way around. "Up this path, and turn right at the statue."

"Thank you." He started off, then hesitated. "Have we met before? You look familiar."

_Oh, God. Is he trying to pick me up, and in a cemetery? Ewwwwww_

Suddenly he snapped his fingers. "Oh, I remember. There's a painting of Joan of Arc at the church. You look like the picture."

_Whew. His interest was innocent, a genuine case of deja vu_. "Yeah, I posed for that. My mom was the painter."

He nodded and continued up the path, having apparently lost interest in Joan now that he had accounted for the recognition.

Joan had learned things in two-and-a-half years. Often an incomprehensible errand turned out to be an occasion to meet somebody. Signing up for AP Chemistry had led to Joan's meeting Adam and Grace. A day of community service had put Joan in contact with Bonnie, though she still didn't understand why that was a good idea. So she kept an eye on the stranger as she walked down her own path. She saw him stop at a grave and stand for several minutes, though his back was to her and she could not see his expression. She made a mental note of the grave's location so that she could check it later.

Now she could concentrate on her own business. Judith's grave was just ahead. There had been times where the sight of the grave had reduced her to tears, but it no longer did that, because the real Judith was not here. The real Judith was on the astral plane doing errands for God, as Joan did on Earth. Though there was an unexpected element in Judith's character: what had happened to turn a wild, rebellious teen into a happy worker? Being killed must have been a very sobering event for her.

Joan saw the stranger start back on along his path. She tried to time her own walk to catch up with him at the original intersection.

"Oh, you again," he said startled. "Visiting a dear departed?" He didn't sound particularly interested; more like he felt obligated to say something.

"Yeah. A classmate of mine, Judith."

"You look young to have lost a classmate."

"She was murdered."

He looked startled and, for the first time, interested. "Did they get the ones that did it?"

"Um, sort of." Her Dad had told her that the main suspect had gotten murdered by some rival. He seemed reluctant to talk about it, and Joan had been reluctant to think about that anyway.

"At least you got closure." And, as if that closed the conversation as well, he started toward the entrance. If Joan was supposed to get this guy's acquaintance, it wasn't working.

"By the way, my name's Joan," she called out, "like the painting."

"Manny." But the offer of a name seemed just a polite return from him. He kept on walking to the gate.

Joan didn't dare follow him -- he might think she was a prostitute or something for pressing her attentions on him so much. Instead she turned and took the trail up the hill. Maybe the gravesite he visited might be a clue, or even the main purpose of the mission.

She reached the grave and looked down. The tombsite was quite simple.

**MARY WALLACE**

**1965-2004**

**R.I.P.**

The name meant nothing to Joan.

Suddenly she felt guilty in a way. Manny Whatever had come to mourn a dead loved one. Should she intrude on his grief? Why was it any of her business? To be sure, God had encouraged her to come here, but then God read people's minds all the time. Did the Deity really understand the virtue of respecting privacy?

And what on Earth did any of this have to do with finding Grace?

TBC

_(Author's Note: I will be out of town and out of computer reach for about a week, so the story will be put on a short hiatus. It will be continued once I get back.)_


	9. Despondent Dork

**NOT WITH A BANG**

**Chapter 9 Despondent Dork**

Luke was used to be taken for granted. For much of his life he had been overshadowed by a flamboyant firstborn brother and a sister who required attention. Later it had been a matter of health: the brother had been paralyzed in an accident and the sister had been afflicted by Lyme disease, while Luke was healthy and self-sufficient. And while he believed in a God as a Creator of the universe, he had felt that the deity was too abstract to show emotion for Luke.

But now things were worse. Luke felt not only neglected, but betrayed. God had used him to deliver the crucial message, then left him to deal with the consequences. And Grace, when it came to a crucial decision in her life, had left him behind. Of course it made sense from a logistics point of view -- Luke could not ride a horse on his own, and they would have had difficulty obtaining a second mount if he did -- but he wished that she had entrusted him with her plans.

His father's nightmare scenario still haunted Luke. He remembered that wonderful night, during which Grace had let him behold her breasts and even touch them, followed by even more intimate activity. If Grace fell in love in some other boy and granted him the same privileges, Luke thought that he could put up with it; he was not naturally jealous. But the possibility that some rapist or pimp could force her to surrender them, or to do something more extreme, was agony.

Luke reacted to the crisis as he always did, by throwing himself into science work. At least he had his work cut out for him. His new interest, biology, was not at all like physics. In physics the big focus was on finding the Theory of Everything which, once discovered, would unlock many of the mysteries of the universe. It was a single goal, one might even say a Hold Grail. But in modern biology the fundamental idea was the genome, the total of an organism's DNA code, consisting of thousands of genes. There was no simple rule behind it: it had evolved over millions of years, changing in response to near-random events. You just had to learn what was there and work out the consequences.

Early in the afternoon Luke's sister banged on his door, urging him to search the Internet for somebody named Mary Wallace. Luke refused. If she needed that information for a mission, she could ask God for it. Luke was no longer involved.

Later Mom had come upstairs with the news that they had found Grace's horse. A farmer near the town of Moretown, Maryland reported that a "ditzy rich girl" had ridden onto his property shortly before sundown the previous day, saying that she was lost. She offered him money if he would drive her to the nearest motel and put up her horse for the night. The next day, when she failed to show up, the farmer examined the horse and its attachments and found the Beghs' home address on the saddle. He called the professor, who repeated the news to the rabbi and the Girardis. Will tried to follow up, showing around Grace's picture, but Grace had been clever again. At the motel Grace had eaten a dinner and used the bathroom, then caught a cab to another hotel. It took Will hours to find the cab, and by then she had checked out of the second hotel, destination unknown. Grace was no ditz.

Luke went back to the genome.

Towards suppertime he heard his mother call out: "Luke! Joan! There's something on TV!"

Something in her tone cut through Luke's lethargy, and he raced his sister down the stairs.

There was a news show on. Onscreen was a dilapidated-looking house, and a logo on the screen said JANUARY 28, 2006, ARCADIA, MARYLAND.. That in itself was unusual; Arcadia was not large enough to support its own TV news station, and the local channels simply echoed the Baltimore news. There were police cars and ambulances around, each with its own flashing lights, and somebody was removing body bags out on stretchers. A number of body bags.

_"Eight dead in all, each a suspected member of the Third Street All-Stars Gang_," said the announcer_. "It's the largest mass murder in Arcadia history. For the second time this week, the spotlight is on Arcadia as a location of a bizarre crime. We have asked Captain Lucy Preston, a member of Homeland Security, to give her opinion."_

A small, middle-aged blonde stepped forward to the microphone, and Luke was startled to hear his mother mutter "that little whore."

_"Captain Preston, do you think this shooting and last week's bombing are connected?"_

_"It's tempting to speculate that, but I think the nature of the crimes are too different. The bombing seems to have been a symbolic blow against government. This shooting seems to be more like a vendetta carried out by a rival gang, an execution-style slaying. I would tend to let the local police handle it."_

Local police meant Dad, and it sounded faintly condescending. There was definitely something ugly between Dad and Captain Preston.

_"Might it really be a form of execution?" _asked the newsman_. " That somebody thought the gang was responsible for the bombing and took matters in their own hands?"_

Luke noticed a slight quaver of Captain Preston's expression. Apparently she hadn't thought of that angle.

_"It seems unlikely_," she said_, "but of course we'll look into it."_

"'We' means Dad," commented Joan. "That means he'll have to stop looking for Grace."

-----

The next morning, the beginning of a new school week, Mr. Price called for a school-wide assembly in the gym, "and this means everybody". And apparently everybody came, except for those known to be away from school, like Maggie Begh and Grace. Not because they were particularly obedient to Mr. Price, but because they could guess what was at stake.

"The police know that somebody in the school had advance notice of the bombing and sent a warning," announced Price. "If we do not find out who it is, they may send investigators into school. None of us want that. So I'm asking for the caller to come forward. This may be the last chance. So speak up."

Price was not a very convincing Good Cop, but Luke knew he was telling the truth. He remembered the commotion two years before when a girl student gave birth to a baby on school property and abandoned it nearby. Dad had wanted to investigate the school, but Mom had pointed out that the targets of suspicion would be the oddballs -- and Joan was odd enough to be on the list. This time even Dad's moderating influence would be missing, Mom no longer had clout, and boys as well as girls would be suspected. Maybe Luke had to come out, though he had no idea how he would explain how he had come by the knowledge.

"It was me," said a squeaky female voice.

Everybody turned to look at Glynis Figliola struggled to her feet. Struggled, because she was heavily pregnant with Friedmann's child. Her husband, when Luke scanned the stands for him, looked as stunned as everybody else, but he was nowhere near his wife and nobody else noticed him.

"You knew about the bombing?" demanded Price.

"Yeah. I was surfing the web looking for discussions of 'V FOR VENDETTA'--"

"V what?"

"It's a movie where a rebel blows up the Houses of Parliament in the future," spoke up one of Price's assistants.

"-- when suddenly I came across blogs talking about blowing up a real, local building within an hour. So I sent a warning."

"That was an admirable thing to do," said the assistant. "Why be so secretive about it?"

"Because I'm giving birth within three months! I don't want to get entangled in a big criminal case."

"Tell us where you found the blogs," ordered Price.

"I can't. I erased the whole record while trying to conceal my identity online. Please don't let the police get me!"

Ms. Lischak sprang to her feet. "If you let the police touch this girl for an instant, I quit."

Mr. Harbison, Joan's law teacher got up as well. "And so will I."

Old Mr. Driesbach got up. "I also."

Price looked around in terror as his own staff seemed to be defying him, and what was worse, doing it in front of the entire student body. "All right -- all right. I'll tell the police what you told me, and say I got the information under promise of anonymity. But for the story to hold up, everybody must stay silent. All right?" No answer. "All right. Back to classes."

But they didn't go back to classes. Everybody sought out everybody else for gossip about Glynis' revelation. A lot of them probably sought out Glynis herself, but Luke was one of the few people who knew her well enough to guess her hiding place. She was in the biology closet at the back of Lischak's classroom.

"Glynis, what the hell happened? You know perfectly well that you didn't find a blog, or send a warning either."

She glared at him, which was scary because Glynis normally tended to look unfocused, even with glasses.. "Of course not. I could guess that Grace found out about the bomb from some of her crazy friends, and you sent the warning."

That wasn't the entire truth, but close enough. "OK. But why make the confession?"

She shrugged. "I was bound to be suspected anyway, being known as a computer nerd. And I owed you and Grace a favor. I'm still ashamed of the way I threw myself at you a couple of weeks ago, calling Grace a bitch, and trying to undermine your loyalty to her. And I gambled that I could hide behind _this_," she added, laying a hand on her swollen stomach. "It worked."

"Yeah. It worked."

It did more than work: it shook Luke out of his own lethargy. It was time to stop feeling sorry for himself, and to make a positive effort to solve the ongoing crisis without griping about who was responsible.

With that in mind, he finally focused his mind on the question of where Grace was headed, rather than why she left him behind.

And he realized where he would find Grace.

_(Author's Note: The incident that Glynis was referring to, trying to win Luke from Grace, occurred in a previous story, LUKE LOOKS FOR ANSWERS)_

_(Author's Second Note: To avoid keeping everybody in suspense about Luke's solution, I'm including an excerpt from two chapters ahead:_

_Grace was exhausted: she had no adrenaline left after three days of flight. Her journey had had a lot of low points. Having to obey the call of nature in a patch of woods halfway between Arcadia and Moretown, which necessitated dropping her jeans and panties in freezing weather. Having to listen to a drug-addicted reactionary radio announcer spout lies about her political ideals, because a cab driver wanted to listen and she didn't want to cross him. Spending hours in Washington's Union Station waiting for a southbound train and terrified of being recognized; to her Washington was like Mordor, the stronghold of the Enemy. Unable to fall asleep in cheap motel rooms, in spite of fatigue, for fear that police would band on her door in the middle of the night. But at least she seemed to have left her pursuers far behind._

_Now she was on the final leg of her journey to her destination: the Cavalo farm where she had vacationed last summer and worked during "Christmas" vacation. Once there, she would do anything -- beg, offer money, promise work -- to get the Cavalos to hide her. She did not know what she would do if they turned her down. She had no Plan B. There was nobody else outside of Arcadia whom Grace knew and trusted._

_The cab dropped her off in front of the Cavalo farmhouse, and grace walked to the front door to ring the bell. Who would answer? The Cavalo's were a middle-aged couple with a teenaged son; the last was probably at school at the moment. And at the last minute Grace remembered that Bonnie McLean, who have offered to let the Cavalos adopt her illegitimate child, might still be here with her baby._

_The door opened, revealing none of the above. Instead she found herself facing a very familiar bespectacled nerd._

_"Hello, Grace," Luke said coldly._


	10. May I Help You?

**NOT WITH A BANG**

**Chapter 10 May I Help You?**

Life goes on. Grace may still be missing, and Arcadia may have been the scene of two lurid crimes in a week, but Joan still had a bookstore to run.

The store had recently been reorganized on a High-Tech theme, and it seemed to have caught on. Luke and the Friedmann couple had talked it up with their friends. And Joan had actually been promoted to a semi-management position for thinking up the idea. But she had missed one day of work in the previous week due to the fight at school, and she needed to make up for that.

And she had managed to keep her current Mission moving as well. When Luke wouldn't cooperate and look up the name on the tombstone, she turned to her older brother. Kevin was not a computer whiz, but given a name and a year-of-death he ought to be able to find the obituary in his newspaper files. Just before she left school for work, he called her on her cell phone.

"Found her. Mary Warren, died October 1, 2004, in a house fire."

"That's terrible."

"There's worse. There were some notes attached to the obituary, things too uncertain to put in the final write-up. Some people think the fire was deliberate, to punish her for reporting somebody to the police."

"Ugh."

"Mind telling me why you're interested in a cold case?"

"Umm---" Joan hadn't thought up a good excuse.

"Right. Well, gotta get back to work. See you this weekend. _Click_" There were advantages to being thought crazy. People didn't expect you to make sense.

The door rang a few minutes after her arrival, and Joan went to greet the customer. Before she could even see his face--

"You!" he cried.

It was Manny from the cemetery.

"Yes, it's me. Joan Girardi. I help manage this bookstore. May I help you_?" So I got another chance with this guy. Try to be professional, but at the same time try to create a bond_.

"I hear there's a story about a guy who went to hell -- not a punishment, I mean, but a sort of tourist."

"Dante's Inferno?"

"Yeah."

Joan withdrew into the stacks, and looked for the classic. There were a number of translations , ranging from Longfellow to the mystery writer Dorothy Sayers. She picked up one copy and the two volumes next to it. When she got back to the front, she found him seated. Good. If she could keep him there--

"It's not just one book, you know," she said. "There are also stories about Dante visiting Purgatory and Paradise."

"I'm just interested in the first one," he said curtly.

_Gotta keep him talking, by keeping up the chatter on my end. He may think I'm a ditz, but that won't be for the first time, and no harm done_. "If you've lost a loved one, you might prefer reading about heaven."

He looked up sharply. "What makes you think -- oh, the cemetery visit." He relaxed. "I don't need a book. I know Mary's in heaven, if there's any justice in the world. No, not the world, the universe. The world's pretty messed up."

"I'm sure it seems that way sometimes," Joan said noncommittally. "Was Mary a relative?"

"Coworker. She and I worked together at an old fast-food place. But that folded, and I went to Iraq for a term in the Army. When I got back, I tried to look her up, and found that some bastards had murdered her." He did a double-take. "Excuse my language. I don't even know why I'm telling you all this."

"It's all right."

But the outburst seemed to have worried him, and he focussed on his copy of Inferno, reading silently.

Joan thought she saw her mission getting clearer. There was a parallel between them; both had had friends murdered. But Joan had found peace, while Manny was still bitter Maybe she was supposed to bring him consolation. But she had to keep him talking for that.

"Is there anything else I can get you?" she chirped, trying to look like the eager young clerk.

He looked up with annoyance, then seemed to think. "There's an old poem. Starts off "Once to every man and nation'. Don't know who wrote it or anything. Can you find a copy? "

"Sure." Her company had set up a Quotations Database precisely for situations like this. Joan sat at the terminal and typed in the line. "Got it. James Russell Lowell. Poem's called 'The Present Crisis'. Here's a book that includes it: CIVIL WAR POETRY." She got the book off the shelf and brought it to him. He thanked her, then seemed to tune her out altogether as he looked in the index.

She made one more try, still in the guise of the overeager shop girl.

"If you could give me your full name and address, we could add you to our list of preferred customers."

Once more that annoyed response followed by self-control. "No need. I'm leaving town as soon as I can. There's nothing for me here. I had a job at City Hall, but that's gone now."

"Government still goes on, even if the building's not there."

"Not in my case. I was on the building's maintenance staff."

"Oh."

"The police ordered us to stay around while they interviewed everybody. Once that's done, I'm outa here. How much for the books?"

Joan clicked on the books at her register, somewhat sad at having to charge a guy that showed literary curiosity but had no job. As he started out the door, she made one more try, dropping all pretense of being a mere clerk.

"Manny, if you want to talk, just come back and I'll listen."

He stared. "Thanks. But I don't want to inflict all my problems on a nice girl like you. Goodbye."

He went out. Joan went back in the storeroom, found a second copy of CIVIL WAR POETRY, and turned to the poem

_Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, _

_In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side; _

_Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, _

_Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right, _

_And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light. _

Wow, powerful stuff, but a little overwrought from Joan's point of view, with her experience. Judith had made all the wrong choices in life, yet God had been good to her. He put up with hesitancies and complaints from Joan, and apparently did not mind Luke's current refusal to cooperate. On the other hand, back during a Civil War in which a pack of vile slave-traders were trying to tear a nation apart, stronger stuff may have been needed.

The door rang and more customers came in. This was, after all, a successful store now. But none of the visitors had the effect on her that the first one did.

Around 9:00 the phone rang, and Joan picked it up. "The Book Site."

"This is your Dad. You shift's about to end, right?"

"Yeah."

"I'm coming to pick you up."

"I can catch the bus as usual."

"I don't want you to do that -- not in a week with two serious acts of violence. Just wait safe indoors until I come."

Violence aside, it would be cold waiting for a bus on a January night, so Joan wasn't complaining. Besides, it would give her a chance to pump Dad for information.

-------

"Dad, have you guys been interviewing a guy named Manny?"

"Manny Keys. Yes. How did you know?"

"He shopped at my store and mentioned the police. What can you tell me about him?"

"Joan, when people talk to police, they're compelled to give unpleasant information to us, for the sake of solving a crime. We owe it to them to keep it in confidence."

"I just wanted to help him. He seemed unhappy."

"Well, all right. He was a soldier in Iraq, discharged about four months ago, and he came back to Arcadia. Had trouble holding jobs; apparently some disciplinary problems. Somebody in City Hall decided that returning veterans deserved more support, so they offered him a position on the maintenance staff about a month ago. I interviewed him because we know the bomb was concealed the bombs in janitor's closets, and I hoped maintenance people could tell me the last times the closets had been checked."

"To establish the probable time for planting the bombs, I see," said Joan. "So he's not a suspect?"

"No reason to single him out. But, Joan, his job problems seem to stretch back to something overseas in Iraq. It's noble for you to try and help him, but I don't know how much you can help with simple tea and sympathy. You may find yourself in over your head."

"Maybe." _On the other hand I have a Friend who can hold my head above the water. It's worth a try._

TBC


	11. End of the Flight

**NOT WITH A BANG**

**Chapter 11 End of the Flight.**

Grace was exhausted: she had no adrenaline left after three days of flight. Her journey had had a lot of low points. Having to obey the call of nature in a patch of woods halfway between Arcadia and Moretown, which necessitated dropping her jeans and panties in freezing weather. Having to listen to a drug-addicted reactionary radio announcer spout lies about her political ideals, because a cab driver wanted to listen and she didn't want to cross him. Spending hours in Washington's Union Station waiting for a southbound train and terrified of being recognized; to her Washington was like Mordor, the stronghold of the Enemy. Unable to fall asleep in cheap motel rooms, in spite of fatigue, for fear that police would bang on her door in the middle of the night. But at least she seemed to have left her pursuers far behind.

Now she was on the final leg of her journey to her destination: the Cavalo farm where she had vacationed last summer and worked during "Christmas" vacation. Once there, she would do anything -- beg, offer money, promise work -- to get the Cavalos to hide her. She did not know what she would do if they turned her down. She had no Plan B. There was nobody else outside of Arcadia whom Grace knew and trusted.

The cab dropped her off in front of the Cavalo farmhouse, and Grace walked to the front door to ring the bell. Who would answer? The Cavalo's were a middle-aged couple with a teenaged son; the last was probably at school at the moment. And at the last minute Grace remembered that Bonnie McLean, who had offered to let the Cavalos adopt her illegitimate child, might still be here with her baby.

The door opened, revealing none of the above. Instead she found herself facing a very familiar bespectacled nerd.

"Hello, Grace," Luke said coldly.

"What are you doing here, Girardi?"

"Tracking you, obviously."

"Can I come in? I'm freezing, and I'm exhausted."

"It's not my house. That's up to my cousins."

Luke's Aunt Jean appeared behind the boy. "Come in, Grace."

Grace walked in. She found herself in a sort of triangle with Luke and his relative, standing in the Cavalo living room. Two against one, but who were the two and who was the one?

"Luke predicted that you'd show up asking for shelter, Grace--" started Aunt Jean.

"Oh, he did?. Did you tell the police that, Girardi?"

"No. I didn't think of it until last night. Dad doesn't know you well, so he's been handling it as a typical runaway-teen case. He assumed you'd try to disappear in a big city like Baltimore, and be exposed to all sorts of dangers on the streets. He thought the key was reconstructing every phase of your journey. But once I finally turned my brain on, I realized that you'd set out for here, the one place outside Arcadia where you'd feel safe. So I got a plane down this morning."

"Let's get back to the original issue," insisted Aunt Jean. "Grace, we're quite short of space here. What used to be the guest room has been converted to a nursery, and at the moment Bonnie is staying there with her baby. We don't even have a good place to put Luke. But if you're really in danger, we'll try to think of something. Are you sure?"

"How can I tell?" demanded Grace. "We've got visitors from Washington treating the bomb as an act of terrorism. We've got rulers who say it's all right to torture terrorists no matter what the law says. They don't even need to prove that they're terrorists, because they think _habeas corpus_ is a luxury. Ever hear of GuantamoBay and Abu Gharib ?"

"You're talking worst-case scenario," said Luke. "Yes, the stories are disgusting. But they aren't going to happen to you. You're an American citizen and, for that matter, a minor. And you're surrounded by people willing to protect you. Dad's fought government corruption before and he'd fight it again; he doesn't confuse power and right. A lot of people are making sacrifices to do the right thing. Joan loaned me a couple of hundred dollars so that I could fly down and intercept you. . Glynis, of all people, made a fake confession to get you and the rest of the school off the hook. Dad used up his weekend trying to find you without putting your disappearance on record. And you've just heard Aunt Jean said she'd protect you if your enemies come looking for you. The only person who took your danger seriously was Maggie, and that's because she's from another culture with a history of violence. So won't you please come home?"

What it came down to was the ability to trust in -- what? Individual goodness prevailing over government corruption? That was hard for Grace to do after years of cynicism, but she had to admit that goodness could be unexpectedly powerful. Earlier in life when she thought she had no escape from misery, salvation had come from a dork whom she hadn't taken seriously.

"All right. I'll go home with you. I'm sorry that I imposed all this on you, Aunt Jean."

"Don't apologize. The least we can do is give you a nice dinner and a chance to rest."

------

Dinner was much more than "nice". Grace had been subsisting on snacks and poor motel food, but that was minor. It was the ritual of sharing food that made her feel so much better. For four days, from Saturday to today, she had been a non-person, on the outside looking in, deliberately dodging any human connection.

Bonnie was there. The former juvenile delinquent was bubbling over with stories about her new baby, who had finally gotten out of the hospital after its premature birth.. Luke was obviously not happy about her presence; this was the tramp who had seduced his sister's boyfriend and plunged her into months of misery. And as he told Grace afterward, popping out an illegitimate child after a history of shallow sexual adventures was nothing to boast about, "any cow can do that". But Bonnie was fascinated by the fact that she had brought life into the world. And if it boosted her self-respect and encouraged her to settle down, it was okay with Grace..

Uncle Jonathan had been checking out their return flights. "You'll have to fly into a hub like Charlotte, but there aren't any more local flights scheduled today. You two will have to spend the night here."

"We've got a spare mattress in the attic," mused Aunt Jean. "We can bring it down and set it in the living room, for a night. That takes care of one of you."

"We can share it," said Grace. Everybody stared and she felt herself turning red. "Luke and I need to _talk._ We won't -- um, what you think."

"Yeah, we need to talk," confirmed Luke. "We've done this before, and can handle temptation."

"Boy, you guys are such wusses," said Bonnie.

------------------

It was completely dark, and more silent than it ever got in a small city like Arcadia. Grace could feel nothing but the comfortable mattress under her and the warm blanket .covering her, both much superior to the cheap motel beddings she had endured. By shifting a few inches to the right, she could feel her arm nestling against Luke's. It was as if she and he were alone in the universe. Then he withdrew.

"What's wrong?" she demanded. "After all that's happened, you don't even want to touch me now?"

"It's your choice, Grace. After all that's happened, keeping your secrets faithfully for a year and a half, you wouldn't trust me an emergency."

"No, it wasn't like that, Luke. I know how much you value your bond with your Dad, simply from the amount of respect that you show my parents. I didn't want to force you into a dilemma where you had to choose between obeying your Dad and hiding me."

"Oh." There was silence for a moment during which Grace was utterly unable to tell what her companion was thinking, being unable to hear his voice or see his expression. _Is my doubt a sign that my bond with him has weakened?_ she wondered. Finally he said "I understand your motives, Grace, but I think I had better admit something. I told Dad that you went to the Begh's horse farm, and gave him his first clue. I wasn't betrayal; I was trying to protect you from dangers on the road."

"I can take care of myself, dork."

"Please don't accept it as an insult, Grace." A long pause. "He's told me stories about how women have been raped, intelligent and self-reliant women who simply let their guard down at the wrong time. He's seen it a lot in his police work. And it happened to -- a member of my family, in an earlier generation. She was so traumatized that she made us promise never to divulge it, even though she was a victim who did nothing wrong. Horrible things can happen to good and smart people, Grace. Don't think I'm being macho or domineering just because I don't want them to happen to you."

"I understand that now." Unsaid was the realization that she was herself vulnerable to a possible assault, falling asleep inches from a male who had once made love to her and knew how delightful it could be.. It wasn't a danger. She trusted Luke. Even after years of cynicism, she knew on the level of instinct that there were noble people in the world.

TBC


	12. Confrontation

**NOT WITH A BANG**

**Chapter 12 Confrontation**

Tuesday midmorning, between classes, Joan got a frantic call from her mother on her cell phone. Unfortunately Helen knew the school schedule, and Joan couldn't use the excuse that she was in class.

"Joan, your brother left a note that he's going on a plane flight looking for Grace."

"Really?" said Joan, trying to sound surprised.

"He said in his note that you loaned him the money for the ticket."

"Luke snitched on me? That ass----!. Next time I'll ---"

"Mind your language, young lady, and keep to the subject. Where was Luke going?"

"I don't know."

"You gave him your precious earnings for a ticket and didn't even ask where?" Helen sounded incredulous rather than angry.

"Well, I wouldn't do it for anybody else." _Except maybe Adam or Grace herself, but I'm not going to pour gas on the fire by saying so. "_Mom, I gotta get to next class."

"All right. But come home directly after school."

"I've got a shift at the bookstore. Do you want me to risk my job?"

Mom sighed loudly. "All right. Your Dad will pick you up at the end of your shift, then we'll talk."

No matter how angry she was, Mom wasn't going to create a scene at either the school or the bookstore. So Joan had ten hours of peace, after which hell would break loose.

------------------

Her Dad picked her up at 8:00 that night. He said nothing but simply glared, giving her the silent treatment. Obviously he was waiting until they got home, where he and Mom could jump on Joan two against one.

So preoccupied were Joan and her father with the upcoming confrontation that neither noticed a car carefully following them through the streets.

-------------------

Will parked in front of the house, and strode toward the front door, Joan reluctantly following.

"Stand aside, Joan," said a familiar voice behind her.

Joan turned around. "What -- AAAAIIIIE!" she screamed.

Manny was pointing a gun at Joan and her father.

Joan managed to get her breathing under control. "Manny, what are you doing?"

"Cleaning up other people's crap. Last year the local government persuaded Mary to give then evidence against the Third Street All-Stars Gang. Having gotten what they wanted, they left Mary to fend for herself, and the gang murdered her. Burned her to death. Well, I've taken care of the gang. Now I'll get the guy who left her to die. I just found out his name today: William Girardi. Stand aside, Joan. You're a nice girl, and I have no quarrel with you."

"Do as he says, Joan," whispered Dad from behind her.

But Joan remembered an incident from two years ago: her bizarre date with the unstable Ramsey. It had ended with Ramsey threatening her father with another gun, while Joan stood out of range wringing her hands. This time she would show more dignity. "No."

Then a number of things happened at once.

Something crashed out through the living room window, creating a huge tinkling sound. Manny turned to see the cause of the racket, so that the gun was no longer trained on the pair. Dad suddenly shoved Joan's left arm below the shoulder, knocking her down on the lawn. BANG, followed a second later by another blast..

Joan was face down on the grass, and for a few seconds she was scared to look up and see what was happening. When she finally did, she saw her Dad rushing toward Manny with his police revolver in his hand, and clearly unwounded. Manny was clutching his right shoulder and had dropped his own gun. Evidently Dad had drawn his weapon while Joan was blocking the view, and had shot Manny in the arm the instant he had pushed Joan out of the way.

Manny lunged for his gun, but Dad reached him and kicked it out of reach, pointing his own gun at the attacker. "Joan, get inside and call 911. Police and ambulance."

-------------

The emergency people came commendably quickly. Will was one of the own, of course, and besides everybody was on edge after a week of lurid crimes/. Manny was handcuffed, but put in the ambulance rather than the police car. Then a policeman came in to get everybody's statements. It once only then that Joan discovered what had happened at the window. Mom had seen the standoff outside and decided on a diversion: she threw a heavy piece of bric-a-brac through the living room window and then hit the floor before Manny shot back. They found the bullet in the kitchen wall. Joan described Manny as a customer at her bookstore, who had apparently followed her home.

The policeman dithered about asking for Dad's gun. There would have to be a formal inquiry about the shooting, but Manny's fingerprints on his own loaded gun, the bullet in the house, and the fact that Dad had deliberately shot at the shoulder rather than vital organs made it likely that they would accept his explanation of self-defense. Finally the policeman decided to let Dad keep the weapon: there might be other attackers around and the broken window made the house vulnerable.

After he left, Helen glared at Joan. She had a totally new reason to be mad.

"Mom, I didn't know any of this was going to happen. He visited the bookstore and seemed troubled -- lost a friend and his job. I gave him my name, that's all. I explained all this to Dad last night."

"It's my fault more than Joan's," Will admitted. "I mishandled the witness problem, and somebody died as a result. I thought keeping the conversation secret was sufficient; I didn't realize think that in that neighborhood even being seen talking to police was a death sentence. The decent people at the funeral all recognized me when I showed up."

"You never mentioned any of that," complained Helen.

"No, it was during the crazy lawsuit, and Joan's recovery from illness. I didn't want to burden the family with anything more. Don't blame Joan. The crucial thing is that the shielded me and gave me the crucial seconds I needed to draw my police revolver." He looked ruefully at the broken window. "I'd better call for a night watchman, until we can get that hole fixed. I know how to find one in a hurry."

He walked toward the kitchen phone, but it went off on its own accord before he touched it. Will picked up. "Hello? --- oh, hello, Jean -- they what? They did? I hope they aren't too much trouble -- all right." He hung up. "That was your cousin Jean, Helen. Both Grace and Luke showed up at their farmhouse. Apparently Grace enjoyed working for them last Christmas, and hoped to hide out at their farm. And Luke figured it out and went there to intercept Grace. They'll start back tomorrow."

"Do my cousins have room for all the visitors? Bonnie's still there, isn't she?

"She did say they were short of beds." Impishly he added: "Luke and Grace agreed to share one to decrease the demand."

Helen rushed to the telephone and frantically started punching the cousins' number. Joan giggled; after the tension of the evening she needed a good laugh. Two months after Joan discovered a naked Grace in her brother's room, and Helen still had not managed to finish her Sex Lecture.

TBC


	13. Closing the Case

**NOT WITH A BANG**

**Chapter 13 Closing the Case**

Joan was pulled out of school the next day. It seemed that Manny Keys refused to make a statement unless Joan was present. Price okayed the absence; he was willing to do anything to close the case and get off the hook about the mysterious Email message.

It was a weird conversation. They were in the hospital room: Manny was in the hospital bed with the wounded arm in a sling and the other handcuffed to the side rail. Joan, her dad, Manny, Lucy, a court stenographer, and even a cameraman, were all crowded in.. Lucy wanted Joan to ask Manny questions at her dictation. On the other hand, Manny just replied to Joan as if nobody else was there.

After the Miranda warning, which Lucy told Joan not to echo, the questions started.

"Did you set the bombs at City Hall?" asked Lucy.

"Did you set the bombs at City Hall?" Joan echoed.

"Yes," confirmed Manny.

"Why?" demanded Joan without prompting.

"The City Government was hopelessly corrupt. Mary wasn't the only person to lose her life under their bungling. It was time for a clean sweep."

"But--" Joan began, but stopped at a wave from Lucy Preston. She remembered her father's complaints about widespread corruption in the Arcadia government when the family first moved in, but the ringleaders had been arrested more than two years ago, due to her father's own efforts. Then she realized that Manny Keys would have been out of the country at the time, fighting in Iraq, and probably never heard of the reforms. Had a near-mass murder been based on a misconception?

"Did you have any accomplices?" asked Lucy. Joan repeated the question.

"None. I learned about bombs in the army. Once I was on the maintenance staff, I was able to smuggle the supplies in easily. The security apparatus was targeted at visitors, not employees."

"Who emailed the warning, then? How did they find out?" Joan repeated the questions.

"I don't know. I didn't intend to spare anybody, except the one that gave me the job, and he was out of town. But they all survived thanks to the warning," he added angrily.

Joan was doubly frightened by that: by the casual wish to kill multiple people, and also the realization that Glynis's story would not hold up. Would the police come to the school again?

But Lucy, who didn't seem to be pleased with the answers, was going on to the next case. "Did you kill any members of the so-called Third Street All-Stars Gang?"

"I killed all of them."

The atmosphere of the room charged markedly at that. For Joan it was the shock of hearing so casual an admission of mass murder. To the law enforcers, it was the fact that he had openly confessed to a heinous crime after being Miranda'ed, on a tape that proved that the confession was purely voluntary. He had basically handed the prosecutors their case -- unless the court decided that he was insane, which seemed possible..

Lucy seemed the only one unmoved. "Did you have any accomplices in that act?"

"No. Didn't need them. Posed as a dope dealer, but gave them a more powerful dose than they were expecting. After an hour they were so doped up that they were easy pickings. My only regret is that they didn't suffer as Mary did. Too drugged to feel any pain."

"Did you threaten Detective Girardi and his daughter with a gun?"

"I threatened the detective. Not his daughter."

"That gun was still pointing at me," protested Joan.

"Yes, Miss Girardi, we'll get your testimony separately," interrupted Lucy. "Just echo the questions. Did you fire a bullet into the Girardi residence, Mr. Keys?"

"Yes." And only then did Manny look disturbed at his own action.

Lucy closed her notebook. "I think I have all the information that we want."

"I want to talk to Joan privately," Manny said.

"NO!" Will protested vehemently.

"Leave a guard, dad," said Joan. "Between that and him handcuffed, I think I'm safe."

After some negotiation, the cameraman handed his camera over to Lucy and produced a gun from somewhere. The others went out.

"So what did you want to tell me?" asked Joan. "I'm not ever coming back."

"You've obviously had a sheltered life, and I just wanted you to understand things. There's two type of people in the world, the Good and the Evil. The Evil prey upon the Good, and the Good, and the Good let them do it. They have the silly idea that to fight back is wrong, violent. 'This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper'…I used to think that God would come and correct things, and the meek would inherit the Earth," Manny went on. "Then I realized that He wasn't coming, and that He probably didn't even exist."

Joan kept her mouth closed about that.

"Then I thought a strong government was the answer. I joined the army, and they sent me over to Iraq. It was chaos. Two groups over there, the Sunnis and the Shi-ites, and both of them were violent, and it wasn't clear which were friends and which were enemies. I got in trouble for roughing up the wrong guy: he deserved it, but officially he was a 'friend'.". So the army sent me back to the US and kicked me out."

Joan didn't know what Manny's idea of "roughing up" a guy was, and didn't want to know. It sounded like he had been Court-martialed, but maybe on psychological grounds that didn't involve jail time. The army just wanted to be rid of him, and considering what she had heard about manpower shortage in Iraq, that was saying a lot.

"I got back to Arcadia and tried looking up Mary, who had been very nice to me on my first job. But she was dead, burned to death because she had gotten in the feud between a street gang and the gang in City Hall. I decided, a pox on both your houses. I was going to avenge Mary's death on both sides."

"It didn't work," Joan said coldly.

"No. But at least I got the gang, and you know what your father is like now. Don't be a wimp like other good people, Joan. Take up the fight against Evil."

"I'll fight," said Joan, "but in my own way."

----

Joan and her father managed to share an empty elevator going down. "That lady from Washington didn't seem very happy," she remarked, "even though the case is solved."

"No," said her father with satisfaction. "Lucy wanted to 'catch a terrorist'; that would have enhanced her career down there. But it turned out not to be a matter of terrorism, and she didn't do the catching."

"And you?"

"I'm just glad a dangerous man is off the streets. And relieved that he didn't hurt you."

"He didn't ever want to hurt me."

As they exited the elevator, they heard an alarm go off. A voice came on the intercom. "Attention, emergency personnel to the sixth floor, both medical and security. Attention--"

"That's Manny's floor," said Joan, turning around. But her father grasped her arm.

"Let them handle it, Joan. I don't want you involved with him ever again."

Joan found out later what the emergency was. With his life in ruins, and in spite of the handicap of two immobilized arms, Manny had somehow contrived to kill himself.

-------

Grace came by the house that evening. Helen was tempted to throw her out for getting her lastborn in so much trouble, but Joan begged permission to talk to her, particularly when Grace said she wouldn't be back for two weeks. Reluctantly Helen let Grace upstairs to talk to her children. Grace brought them up to date on her side of the story.

"I went by the Beghs to return the bracelets and apologize to the professor in general. He was fairly reasonable about it. He said that asking for the stuff was honorable, that it was Maggie's fault for giving them to me. She's not going to be able to ride her horses for at least a week."

"That's her punishment?" asked Joan. "Being grounded from horseback riding?"

"No, that's a consequence of the punishment. Seems that Maggie got her butt whipped, literally. Her Dad doesn't have modern Western inhibitions about corporal punishment. Apparently you don't feel like sitting in a saddle after that. Or anywhere else."

The three looked at each other uncomfortably, each obviously wondering how they would have fared in a milieu where children were still spanked, or worse.

"I'll try to make it up to her later," Grace said finally. "Right now I'm grounded, big time. My parents let me pay you one visit because you found me and persuaded me to come home. My dad and the professor are meeting tomorrow to talk out the events of the week. I hope the professor doesn't persuade dad that his form of discipline is better."

"I'm grounded, too," said Luke.

"And I'm not going to get my two hundred dollars paid back," groused Joan.

"There's another thing worrying me," continued Luke. "Glynis's story and Manny's don't match. There was no email traffic about the bomb, because Manny was working alone. Will Glynis get in trouble? Or the school."

Grace shrugged. "The guy's dead, and can't be questioned anymore. If Glynis is smart enough to stick to her story, the police will just have to assume that he lied."

A knock at the door. "Joan? Another guy from your school. Said his name was Harvey or something like that. Wants to talk to you, but I thought I'd ask you first."

Mystified, Joan opened the door and followed her mother to the top of the stairs. Cute Boy God was standing in the living room, with a serene smile as if people made him wait all the time. He wasn't fazed by the boarded-up window, either. "Harvey" must have really been "Yahveh". For a moment Joan was tempted to tell her Mom not to let him in, and see what would happen, but she didn't have the nerve. "Yeah, I know him. Send him up."

Cute Boy God came into the room a minute later and shut the door. It was odd: Joan's bedroom should have been crowded with Joan, Grace, Luke, and the Boy all occupying it, yet it seemed more spacious after he entered. Luke speculated afterward that the Boy had somehow reshaped space, or at least their perception of it.

"I'm sure you have some questions for Me about this week," he began.

"Yeah," replied Luke promptly. "Why didn't you give me more warning about sending that message? I could have covered our bu--, um, our tracks better."

"But a greater lead time would also have affected the recipients of the message. As it was, with the predicted explosion only minutes away, they had no choice but to evacuate. If the warning had come earlier, they would have felt doubts and suspicions about it, and it would have been ignored."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course--" the Boy sighed. "Foreknowledge is hard to explain. I not only foreknow what is going to happen, but what would happen if I did something different. I'm the only unpredictable part of the equation."

"I'd like to discuss that someday," said Luke, his philosophical side taken precedence over his annoyance.

"What about me?" Joan intervened angrily. "I thought Manny was a nice guy with a lot of bad luck in his life, and that you wanted me to befriend him. Why didn't you warn me that he was a homicidal maniac? I could have been shot!"

"I knew you wouldn't be."

"Well, _yippee_ for You!" Joan said sarcastically. "_I _didn't!"

"No, and that's why your standing in front of your father was admirable. You have developed courage and know it. You needn't feel embarrassed any more about panicking in the Ramsey case. And do you see other lessons in this week's events?"

Joan thought deeply. "I suppose so," she conceded. "Manny was wrong. People aren't all bad or all good. Manny wasn't completely a monster. He genuinely loved his murdered friend and wanted to do good by her. And dad, who is a very good man, has made mistakes in his life."

Grace added sulkily: "And I suppose the moral is that even though society has flaws, I should have been able to trust its institutions rather than upsetting everybody by running away."

"Exactly," replied Cute Boy God. "Manny was correct in discerning the evils of the world, but wrong that the only choices were violence vs submission. This is the way the world is changed: not with a bang, nor with a whimper, but with wisdom."

THE END.


End file.
